The New School of Natural Skin Care

I’d like to welcome all of you – old guys and everyone else – to the new school of natural skin care.

It’s all about attending to balance rather than fixing. And a key component is the use of adaptogens.

Peter just wrote about adaptogens, and I’d like to continue the conversation.

Adaptogens have been in continual use in Asia for thousands of years. Up until recently many people in the West were not familiar with them. They are gaining in awareness, especially with the growth of alternative medicine and the increased desire for natural solutions.  

When people do come to understand them, and how they work, very often there’s one of those ‘a-ha moments’ where suddenly something jumps out at them and they wonder how they could have missed it.

It often feels new to people because adaptogens do not work in same the way as most ‘Old School’ skincare products do. That is, adaptogens do not fix problems, rather they work to balance them so the body can recover naturally. Two small words with vastly different meanings and outcomes.

For decades many have utilized the ‘oceans of lotions and potions,’ applying them in the hope they would help heal and renew their aging skin.

Some help, but most are band-aids because most are still old school. They fail to address the basic underlying cause of unhealthy, stressed skin - which is the lack of essential balance our skin needs to function optimally.

The sweet spot our skin naturally functions best at is what science calls homeostasis. It is the optimal spot our skin needs to get to first and foremost, especially as we age.   

And, once our skin is balanced many of us discover there’s no longer a need for the old school of ‘oceans of lotions and potions.’

While adaptogens are not magic they seem to act like it. For example, your skin may need one thing to help rehab its youthful balance, and I may need something entirely different. The good news is adaptogens can quietly help us both.  

Some people like to think of adaptogens as something like a home thermostat. We set the high and low temperatures where we feel most comfortable and let the thermostat do the rest. While we’re not houses, our skin is looking for that sweet spot to do its job both day and night.

So, all of us here at Old Guy Skincare (all young at heart) welcome everyone - men and women, old, just getting there and young - to the New School of Natural Skin Care.  Our hope is to help everyone look better and feel better by living as much as possible balanced lives the way Nature intended us to live.